The
priest of Zeus Hoplosmios had been murdered; but as yet it had not
been ascertained who was the assassin; when certain persons asserted
that they had heard the murdered man's head, which had been severed
from the body, repeat several times the words, 'Cercidas slew man on
mam.' Search was thereupon made and a man of those parts who bore
the name of Cercidas hunted out and put upon his trial. But it is
impossible that any one should utter a word when the windpipe is
severed and no motion any longer derived from the lung. Moreover,
among the Barbarians, where heads are chopped off with great rapidity,
nothing of the kind has ever yet occurred. Why, again, does not the
like occur in the case of other animals than man? For that none of
them should laugh, when their midriff is wounded, is but what one
would expect; for no animal but man ever laughs. So, too, there is
nothing irrational in supposing that the trunk may run forwards to a
certain distance after the head has been cut seeing that bloodless
animals at any rate can live, and that for a considerable time,
after decapitation, as has been set forth and explained in other
passages.
The purposes, then, for which the viscera severally exist have now
been stated. It is of necessity upon the inner terminations of the
vessels that they are developed; for humour, and that of a bloody
character, cannot but exude at these points, and it is of this,
solidified and coagulated, that the substance of the viscera is
formed.
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